Work Ethic

“Work Ethic” was a piece made for “Everything Must Go,” a show at Thomas Brothers tool shop in Archway, organised by Archway Interventions and Responses (AIR). After being a family-run business for nearly a hundred years, the brothers decided to close the shop in the spring of 2014.

As the shop emptied, the space was filled with artwork made by staff and students of the former Byam Shaw School of Art which was subsumed by Central Saint Martins in 2012, shortly after it’s hundreth birthday. Thomas Brothers had been a go to shop for all the Byam Shaw students and felt in many ways to be an extension of the college as the staff had always been eager to help and advise.

For me, a trip to Thomas Brothers was also about a willingness to commit to crafting a piece of work with proper care and the right tools and materials. This has become an important ethos that underpins my work so for the show, I got a traditional blue warehouse jacket, such as some of the shop staff wore and lined it with a William Morris fabric using couture sewing techniques.